The Demo Site

Jim Fouts, Warren Mayor, hand delivered a letter to General Motors’ CEO Fritz Henderson offering the company long-term tax incentives to move its headquarters from the Renaissance Center in Detroit to the GM Tech Center in Warren.

Fouts’ six-page letter proposes a 30-year personal property tax-break, the longest tax-break ever offered in the state and three times longer than Warren has ever proposed. He said the GM could save tens of millions of dollars as it looks to cut costs.

“I present this to you not as a choice between Detroit and Warren, but as a matter of GM moving forward and surviving,” Fouts’ letter said. “Restructuring implies cost-cutting, and this proposal is a prime example of cutting costs through consolidation.” 

The proposal said that the move would require no new construction and that Warren’s Downtown Development Authority would contribute funds to help with the move.

He said that GM’s Tech Center in Warren could easily accommodate the 4,300 employees working at its downtown Renaissance Center headquarters.

Source: Detroit News

Chrysler’s CEO Bob Nardelli said today that he expects the sale of the automaker’s assets to a new company to be completed by Friday. He said that regulatory approvals will be finalized and he will step down as the company’s CEO.

Nardelli said that he plans on returning to his former post at Cerberus Capital Management on Monday morning. Nardelli, who worked for Cerberus until July 2007, was asked to run Chrysler in August 2007.

He went onto explain that Chrysler’s financial troubles started late last year and put the company in a ”situation of not having enough liquidity to keep the doors open.”

He wrapped up his hearing saying that he favored keeping Chrysler independent, as opposed to the partnership with Fiat SpA.

Fiat will take a 35 percent share in Chrysler and will change the name of the new company to Chrysler Group LLC.

Source: Detroit News

Bob Lutz, who has retired from his vice chairman position at General Motors, said that the new GM that comes out of the “cleansing” of the radical restructuring will be “smaller and leaner but a powerhouse” that is very profitable.

As for GM going into bankruptcy, Lutz said: ”We intend to get in and out very soon. The U.S. government wants its money back, and our plan is to pay it back as quickly as possible. The U.S. government doesn’t want to own auto companies.”

Separately, Lutz said that he envisions the Obama administration’s auto task force to become a permanent entity in the government, exercising ”benevolent oversight” of the auto industry.

“I fully expect and I hope that it will be replaced with some sort of permanent structure that facilitates the continuation of this dialogue,” Lutz said in his speech today to the Automotive Press Association.

Source: AutoObserver